South Africa thrash India by 141 runs in the 1st ODI

Indian cricket team crashed to a massive 141-run defeat to the hosts in the opening cricket one-dayer at Jo’burg

Johannesburg: Indian batsmen found the going tough against South Africa’s lethal pace attack as the team crashed to a massive 141-run defeat to the hosts in the opening cricket one-dayer here.

After hammering the Indian bowlers into submission with a massive score of 358 for four, the five-pronged South African pace attack came out all guns blazing to bowl out the visitors for 217 in 41 overs yesterday.

It was a thoroughly professional performance by South Africa as Indians were outplayed in all departments of the game to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

This was the second biggest margin of victory by the South Africans against India in the ODIs played between the two teams.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni fought hard scoring 65 off 71 balls, including eight fours and a six, but most of the top-order batsmen found it difficult to counter the pace of Dale Steyn (3/25), bounce generated by Morne Morkel (1/29) and the controlled swing bowling by Ryan McLaren (3/49).

The South African attack once again exposed Indian batsmen’s inability to cope with pace, swing and bounce in adverse conditions after the trio of Quinton de Kock (135), AB De Villiers (77) and JP Duminy (59 no) pulverised the young Indian bowlers hitting them all around the park.

From the onset, Indian openers Rohit Sharma (18) and Shikhar Dhawan (12) found it difficult to score runs as Steyn and Morkel swung the ball making life difficult for the batsmen.

Rohit, in fact, played and missed a lot of deliveries before getting off the mark only in the 17th delivery that he faced.

Dhawan on the other hand hit three boundaries but when a Morkel delivery kicked up, the Delhi lad mistimed a pull-shot which was taken by wicketkeeper de Kock running backwards.

Rohit and Virat Kohli (31) batted for nearly 10 overs adding 46 runs in the process but Steyn and Morkel bowled with controlled aggression as they gave away very little.

Morkel was unlucky not to dismiss Kohli batting on two, when he got one to kick from short of good length but de Kock in his bid to engage in premature celebrations dropped the nick.

Kohli, in fact, took a blow on the rib cage but played some lovely drives including a forward defensive push off Steyn that raced through extra cover while another on-drive off the very next delivery also fetched him a boundary.